Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/138

 earlier reigns. For these reasons many able men failed to pass the examinations, or if they passed, could not obtain promotion to important offices (see, , ), whereas many plodding and unimaginative scholars were elevated to the highest posts. In consequence, the government became chiefly an agency for issuing stereotyped decrees and for perpetuating outworn policies. Many urgent reforms were shelved, and the nation found itself unable to cope with the new mercantile and political forces which later assailed it from the West.

Ts'ao Chên-yung's collected works, entitled 綸閣延暉集 Lun-ko yen-hui chi, were probably not printed. A collection of his poems on events in history was printed under the title, 話雲軒詠史詩 Hua-yün hsüan yung-shih shih, 2 chüan.

[1/369/1a; 1/327/7a; 5/2/17a; 3/95/1a; 行述 Hsing-shu of Ts'ao Wên-ch'ih in Shih-ku-yen chai chi; Chang Hsing-chien 張星鑑, 仰蕭樓文集 Yang-hsiao-lou wên-chi 1/59b; Nien-p'u of, p. 78a; Ch'ing-ch'ao yeh-shih ta-kuan (see bibl. under ) 7/2–4; Hsüan-tsung Ch'êng Huang-ti shih-lu (see under ) 258/19b.]

2em

 TS'AO Jung 曹溶, 1613–1685, scholar and official, was a native of Hsiu-shui, Chekiang. He became a chin-shih in 1637 and served as a censor at the close of the Ming dynasty. With the change of dynasties in 1644 he was given the same office under the new regime. In 1655 he became vice-president of the Board of Revenue and in the same year lieutenant-governor of Kwangtung. After he had retired from official life he was recommended to take the special examination known as po-hsüeh hung-tz'ŭ of 1679 (see under ), but declined the honor. As a bibliophile he was interested in assembling the collected works of literary men of the Sung and Yüan dynasties. A catalogue of these works appears in the 觀古堂書目叢刻 Kuan-ku t'ang shu-mu ts'ung k'o of 1902, under the title 靜惕堂宋元人集目 Ching-t'i t'ang Sung Yüan jên chi mu. According to this list, Ts'ao Jung owned 196 collected works of Sung authors and 139 of Yüan authors. The catalogue of his library as a whole, entitled Ching-t'i t'ang shu-mu (書目), is preserved in manuscript in the Kuohsüeh Library, Nanking. From his library he personally selected a number of titles which were brought together in the famous ts'ung-shu known as 學海類編 Hsüeh-hai lei-pien, or "Classified Anthology from the Ocean of Learning." This ts'ung-shu was enlarged by a pupil, T'ao Yüeh 陶越, and in its present form comprises 440 monographs. It was not printed until 1831—a reprint appeared from the Commercial Press in 1920. Ts'ao Jung achieved some distinction as a poet, and in this field his name is often linked with that of. His collected verse, Ching-t'i t'ang shih-chi (詩集), 44 chüan, was first printed in 1725. The Ssŭ-k'u Catalogue (see under ) has critical notices of eight works attributed to him.

[2/78/51b; 30/3/7a; 32/4/8b; Chekiang t'ung-chih (1812) 179/14a; Chekiang, Kashing fu-chih (1878) 52/49a; Ts'ang-shu chi-shih shih (see under ) 4/11b;, Ch'ih-pei ou-t'an (1701) 16/10b asserts that Ts'ao's library contained the collected writings of 180 Sung authors and of 115 Yüan authors.]

2em

 TS'AO Yin 曹寅, Oct. 13, 1658–1712, Aug. 24, official and man of letters, was the great-grandson of Ts'ao Hsi-yüan 曹錫遠 who came from a family in Fêng-jün, Chihli, but who joined the Manchus at Mukden or Liao-yang, perhaps involuntarily as a captive. His family belonged to one of the companies of "banner-bearers and drummers" (旗鼓) of the Bond Servant Division of the Manchu Plain White Banner, under the control of the Imperial Household. His grandfather, Ts'ao Chên-yen 曹振彥, was salt controller of Chekiang from 1656 to 1659, and his father, Ts'ao Hsi 曹璽, was superintendent of the Imperial Textile Factory（織造) at Nanking between the years 1663 and 1684. For his service, or his contributions, to the Imperial Household Ts'ao Hsi was rewarded with honorary ranks, finally becoming president of the Board of Works.

During the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties there were three Imperial Textile Factories situated in the silk producing areas at Nanking, Soochow, and Hangchow, their function being to supply the government and the Imperial Household with silk fabrics. In the Ming period such establishments were supervised by eunuchs but in the Ch'ing period, by the bond servants of the Imperial Household. The salt controllership and the superintendency of one of these factories were among the most lucrative posts in the Empire. Thus Ts'ao Yin's grandfather and his father must 740